Best Friend

Everyone, I dare say, has a best friend. Some have more than one, some have just one, and some change one every year or so.

Best friend defines my existence. She gave me identity and stuck a label on me, which I did not even know about until I met her this summer. We've only known each other for 4 months now, and I just feel as if we had known each other from the very beginning. Maybe because it took us exceptionally long to get to know each other or because we talk to each other all the time. It doesn't make any sense because we don't see each other at all. Perhaps once a week if I am free on Sundays or if I have time to go to church with my family. Yet, she knows all my secrets and I know all hers as well. From this friendship, I know that mental support is more important than any other possible factors that shape typical friendships. Not kindness, similar interest, or similar sense of humor. But, it's understanding and mutual support that really get the friendship going.

It also seems normal enough to have new best friends as we grow more mature and therefore change both inside and outside. We all change no matter how consistent our homes and school environment remain. I, too, feels like a totally different person from middle school, not to mention elementary school. Although still the same student, I am different - everyone feels it, and even I myself have noticed changes, even the subtle ones, in just a few years. Therefore, every time we change, we need new sources of communication, connection, and understanding. It is interesting how our criteria of determining our best friends constantly change, and we rarely know of this.